I’ve decided that in 2026 I’m going to do the Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media at the Media Makeup Academy. I’m going to devote all my time to finishing my degree in Animation and Game Design, which I’ll complete online, and then I’ll attend the Advanced Diploma three days a week, face-to-face.
The Advanced Diploma runs for around two years, so by the end of 2027 I’ll have both qualifications — and, hopefully, a useful skill set I can generate income from, so I can travel the world!
The application process for the Media Makeup Academy is quite comprehensive. I have to sit a literacy and numeracy test, fill in a lot of forms, and provide various pieces of documentation. One of the required documents is my birth certificate. I didn’t have a copy on hand, so I ordered one online last night — and to my surprise, I received an email this morning saying it was ready.
I definitely wasn’t expecting that kind of fast pace from the Department of Consumer and Business Services, but I was pleasantly surprised. I made my way into Chesser House in town to pick it up, and I took this photo of the sign at the front of the building.
I marched out of the office armed with my birth certificate, and I’m now filling in the rest of the application paperwork. I’ll have it all scanned at Officeworks over the next couple of days.
That was actually a pretty boring little story — but it leads me into another one, which also involves Births, Deaths and Marriages… and it only just happened yesterday.
In June 2024, my dad passed away. It was incredibly sad. Even though he had been living with dementia and Alzheimer’s for many years, his death still came as a shock to all of us. It was deeply upsetting for my mother, for me, and for his other four surviving children.
Dad had been married once before he met my mother. From that first marriage, he had four children: three daughters and a son. I won’t say the son became a man — I’ll say he became a son of a bitch. He recently passed away from frontal lobe dementia, which accelerates much faster than the type Dad had.
From Dad’s first marriage, three daughters remain. They’re all in their sixties now. One of them — let’s call her Marie — has lived a very unconventional life and often seemed quite detached from the rest of the family. She’s moved around remote parts of the state, and the last we heard she was fossicking somewhere out bush. I’ve always thought of her as a dreamer more than anything — someone living in a different reality, but never with any real malice.
The other two daughters, whom I’ll call Lucy and Odette, are more involved and more present, but that didn’t necessarily make things easier. I’ve written about Lucy before on this blog. She once contested her own mother’s will, which caused significant conflict in their family. Years ago, during a difficult time in my life, she tried to support me, but in the process, it felt as though she wanted me to turn against my parents. She has never liked my mother, and she hasn’t hidden that.
Odette, on the other hand, has always reminded me of a very devoted, evangelical personality — outwardly warm, but with an intensity underneath that I found hard to read. Over the years, I sometimes interpreted her kindness as having another layer beneath it, though that was only ever my impression. When Dad was in residential care, she visited him regularly, and I often wondered about her motivations — but again, those were only my own private thoughts, not anything I claim as fact. Mum saw her differently and always believed she was being generous and helpful.
When Dad passed away, I wasn’t surprised that questions about the estate came up. I had a strong feeling that Lucy and Odette would be looking for clarity about whether there was an inheritance. What they may not have known — or perhaps didn’t want to believe — was that there simply wasn’t one. Dad had under $2000 in his bank account when he died.
In the years before his passing, Dad had experienced significant cognitive decline due to dementia, and during that time he continued trading shares, which resulted in large financial losses. Eventually my parents had no choice but to sell their home. For the first time in her life, Mum no longer owned property, and now she and I rent my brother’s house. If he ever decided to sell, we’d both be in a difficult position.
Lucy called Mum first, asking about the will. Mum explained, truthfully, that there was no money. Lucy seemed unconvinced and pressed her for explanations about where the money had gone. Mum didn’t owe her those explanations — but she gave them anyway.
Then Lucy rang my brother with similar questions. She mentioned that Dad had once planned to set up a trust for Marie, but my brother simply told her the truth: there was nothing left.
Later, Odette contacted Mum as well. She said she was putting together a scrapbook and wanted a copy of Dad’s will for it. Mum agreed, as she was legally entitled to see it, though when Mum told me that, I just thought to myself, “What kind of person puts a copy of their father’s will in a scrapbook?” It struck me as such an odd request.
After Odette reviewed it, Mum called her, and Odette seemed distant. I was sitting right beside Mum when that call happened, and the change in tone felt noticeable.
Then yesterday, Mum’s accountant — who is also one of the executors of the will — received an email from Odette. She opened the letter with “Dear Messrs Smith,” which struck me as unusually formal. She thanked him for his previous email and pointed out that it hadn’t been signed, before asking him to clarify the contents of the will. She wrote that the will didn’t seem to align with things Dad had said to her and her siblings over the years.
She noted that Dad had lost his driver’s licence at 87, the same age he was when the will was drafted, and expressed concern about whether he fully understood complex documents by that stage. She implied that Mum may have been making more decisions for him, and wondered whether the will reflected his genuine intentions.
She then recounted past conversations she said had taken place — family dinners where Dad reportedly referred to my brother and me as “accidents,” and various statements about how the estate might one day be divided. These were her recollections, and I can’t verify them, but she raised them in her letter to argue that the will didn’t match her understanding of Dad’s plans.
She finished by asking a series of questions about Dad’s financial affairs: his superannuation, the sale of the house, the share portfolio, and whether any trusts existed. The overall tone made it clear that she wanted reassurance that everything had been handled correctly. She closed by expressing affection for Dad and saying she had been the one who visited him most often in aged care, and that she simply wanted to understand his true intentions. She then set a deadline for a detailed response.
First and foremost, I want to say that the email really upset my mother. By pursuing this line of questioning, Odette is essentially implying that Mum is hiding money from the rest of the family — and that hurt her deeply.
At the same time, I was still feeling hurt from something my brother had said to me. I’d recently told him that he and I reminded me of puma cubs — close in youth, then forced to go our separate ways — and he had completely dismissed the sentiment. That stung. But I had to put that aside and send him the email anyway. We ended up having a long talk about it.
When I say “the first family,” I do so deliberately — because to me, they are not my family. I can count the number of conversations I’ve had with any of them on two hands. They’d sometimes come around to visit Dad, and if I was home, I’d politely say hello — but they don't know the first thing about me.
My brother believes the email was a joint effort — written by both Lucy and Odette. He also said that by sending it, Odette must have known she was burning the last bridge. That she wouldn’t speak to any of us again. He told me outright that he wouldn’t attend either of their funerals.
I responded lightheartedly, “I would go — just to make sure they were really dead.”
That email really made me think: is it normal to feel entitled to an inheritance from our parents?
When Lucy contested her own mother’s will — because she didn’t get as much as she thought she deserved — my mum said she believed parents do have a responsibility to provide for their children, even after death. I suppose there’s some truth to that, but for me personally, I never expected a thing. Not a cent.
My parents spent so much on me throughout my life. The idea of demanding more after they’re gone just doesn’t sit right. I would never presume to be entitled to anything. The reality is that Mum and Dad were once millionaires, and now my mother has almost nothing. She lost everything.
I recently came into a small sum of money and gave most of it to Mum. I'm going to keep the rest aside — just enough in case we need to cover legal costs. I’m hoping we won’t have to use it, though. I’m hoping that once Odette receives the response from the lawyer the accountant connected us with — she’ll back down and let it go.
After receiving Odette’s email, my accountant sought legal advice. He arranged for a lawyer to come out to his office and meet with Mum and me this Friday. But before that, he forwarded me an email the lawyer had sent — one that outlined his initial advice. In it, the lawyer said he intended to respond directly to Odette, making it clear that there is quite literally no money, and that pursuing anything further would be a waste of her time.
But you know what truly moved me? This precious human being said he didn’t want to meet with Mum — because he didn’t want to generate unnecessary legal costs, given how small the estate is. That shifted something in me. It changed the way I see lawyers, even just a little. That kind of thoughtfulness isn’t something you expect.
